Debi
LeVieux experienced what most floral customers encounter
while transporting their floral arrangements and created a
floral delivery system to solve a need. This is her story:

I was working as an Office Manager when dating a
gentleman who
was kind enough
to send me flowers about once a month. I
always thought flowers were God’s gift of beauty to this
world. I enjoy the unique color, shape and aroma of all the
different varieties. To have flowers delivered to me at my
office made me feel special and brightened my day.

Of
course, just like everyone, my first thought and comment
would be “ Oh, they're beautiful”. Then as soon as the
delivery driver walked out the door my immediate next
thought and comment would be “How am I going to get them
home?” It only takes a couple of times of trying to deliver
a vase of flowers home do you come to realize it is not
easy. Even though this was a difficult task, I wanted to bring
them home to show the man who purchased them how much I
appreciated his thought.

I
noticed after a few months the arrangements were being
delivered from a different Retailer almost every time. When
I asked him about it he stated he was not pleased with how
the arrangements appeared after I would bring them home.
Some of them would have broken stems or half the pedals
gone. It was then I realized that not only transporting
the beautiful arrangements home almost caused me to wreck and
created a mess in my vehicle but he was becoming discouraged
with his purchases. Concerned that the beautiful flowers
would stop coming, I knew I needed to find a way to deliver
them so he could view them the same as I did when I first
received them.

I
called several of the Florists and was told several ways to
transport my arrangements. Some of the
suggestions were to
empty the water out of the vase, to wrap the seat belt
around them, or find a box and stuff paper around the vase.
Well, emptying the water made the flowers appear wilted, the
seat belt just created more damage to the arrangement, and
it wasn’t always easy to find the right size of box laying
around. I was very excited to hear that one of our local
supermarkets provided a floral carrier to their customers so
I requested one. My excitement quickly vanished after
braking too quickly and the floral box tipped over right
along with the flower arrangement, creating another mess. I
had enough but was not willing to give up receiving my
flowers. I decided to create my own transporter for my
arrangements and proceeded inventing a prototype that
worked.

It was
a coworker who noticed my invention and stated I was not
the only one who has had problems transporting flowers.
After being encouraged to share my product with others, I
knew it was just as important for it to work for the
Florists as well. I presented the product to some of the
local top designers and with their input made some minor
changes to create the VaseValet®.

In 2002 I started my own company. Vase Valet, Ltd. is a
Kansas-based company whose mission is to provide a superior
transporter solution to the floral retailers that strive to
achieve customer satisfaction. The patented VaseValet® is now
sold nation wide to Retail Florists.